Lacus Orphei

This monumental fountain stood on the *Clivus Suburanus just E of the *Porticus Liviae, in Piazza di S. Martino ai Monti (Cotellessa, Rodríguez Almeida 1983, Coarelli). It consisted of three basins (represented as circles on the Severan Marble Plan; Rodríguez Almeida, Forma pl. 11) in front of a rear façade that could be described figuratively as a theatrical ‘stage building’. Along with statues of wild beasts and Ganymede, there was ‘a slippery Orpheus, on the highest point of a wet theater’, Orphea . . . udi vertice lubricum theatri (Mart. 10.20.6-7), hence the name of the fountain derived from the statue. It has been suggested that the house of the Augustan poet Albinovanus Pedo stood just E of the Lacus Orphei (Rodríguez Almeida, LTUR). Rodríguez Almeida (1983, 112) draws a connection between this public fountain and the restoration of the *Anio Vetus (11-4 B.C.), and so dates the Lacus Orphei to the Augustan period; he also identifies Martial’s fountain with the lacus Orfei of the Regionary Catalogues and thus shows that Regio V extended within the *Servian Wall as far as this point. This is more convincing than the alternative suggestion that the lacus Orfei and Martial’s Orpheus are two separate locations (Fridh). It is even possible that the Lacus Orphei is identical with the Lacus Esquilinus of Varro, Ling. 5.50 (Cotellessa). Our map marks the position of the small portion of the Lacus Orphei attested on the basis of the Marble Plan.